Hufnagel shakes his head, puts Stamps players on twitter ban

Stampeders head coach/GM deals with yet another firestorm

Calgary Stampeders head coach/GM John Hufnagel speaks to the media on Wednesday after putting out yet another firestorm — Nik Lewis’s inappropriate twitter comment.

Photograph by: Gavin Young
, Calgary Herald

Most days, John Hufnagel serves as the head coach and general manager of the Calgary Stampeders

Nowhere in his job description appears the title of “firefighter” or “crisis management expert” or “social media consultant.”

But once again, Hufnagel found himself in all of the above mentioned roles Wednesday after practice in preparation for Sunday’s West Division Final against the B.C. Lions.

“There’s no question I grew up in a different decade, a different era, century or whatever you want to call it,” Hufnagel, 61, sighed. “But you’re dealing with young men that have a lot of things that grab a lot of attention. Sometimes, they don’t understand the attention that people pay to the kind of role models that they are expected to be.

“I think each and every team has had situations where they have to deal with things like this.”

No CFL team, at least this season, has dealt fielded string of off-field distractions like the Stampeders.

First came the Jon Cornish mooning incident in Regina. Next up was the fallout from sports radio host Dean Molberg verbally expressing his desire for the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ plane to Calgary to crash, killing four players (Molberg later apologized for a joke gone terribly wrong).

From there, Hufnagel had to assure the powers that be in the league — and the public — that he didn’t allow Drew Tate to play with a concussion (the Calgary quarterback went on national television Sunday and said he had no memory of the first half of a 36-30 victory over the Riders.)

On Wednesday, Hufnagel reiterated that Tate successfully passed all of the required tests under the CFL concussion protocol.

Which brings us to the latest firestorm caused by a Nik Lewis tweet citing the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

For those stuck out in the Rocky Mountains for the last two days (or otherwise unplugged from the Internet), Lewis sent out a tweet Monday that raised eyebrows across the country.

He wrote: “I just bought OJ’s gloves on eBay. Now all I need is a white girl named Nicole,” and then added the hashtag #MaybeALittleToFar.

Indeed, Lewis went so far, Hufnagel assembled the entire team Wednesday morning and asked the players to refrain from tweeting until the off-season.

Technically, it was a request. But make no mistake: this is a cease-and-desist order from the man calling the shots.

“We’re dealing with young men, with technology, and they’re finding the dangers about the technology,” Hufnagel said. “Sometimes, the learning experience and the learning curve is more steep than what it should be. I’m hoping this finally makes everybody aware of the danger.

“Something you might not feel is a threatening remark or contentious remark — it can be.”

As for the Lewis tweet, Hufnagel threw the proverbial flag for objectionable conduct in 140 characters or less.

“This organization is not proud of what occurred,” Hufnagel said. “It’s something as an organization that we do not condone and need to take care of.”

As of Wednesday evening, no Stampeder player had violated the no-tweet decree.

“He’s the head coach,” Lewis said after practice. “My focus is on B.C.”

Once the Stampeders are eliminated, however, all bets are off.

“Will I stop tweeting? In the off-season, I’m going to tweet,” Lewis pledged. “I’ll be smarter about what I tweet. I guess I’m not as funny as I thought I was.”

“I’m still struggling to sort of find my own niche on Twitter, because as something to exchange information, I don’t think it’s ideal,” he said. “One hundred and forty characters leaves too much without being said.

“Quite often, that’s what gets people in trouble.”

As for the O.J. tweet, Cornish has no doubt Lewis just wanted to make people laugh.

“You know it’s Nik being Nik,” he said. “He meant it to be funny. He didn’t mean any offence.

“In the end, it’s how it’s taken by the media and that’s always not how it’s meant.”

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